Ur-Hamlet

Ur-Hamlet

Saxo, the monk, unearths Hamlet's skeleton from the basements of
the castle, evokes his life and interprets it in Latin. He
addresses the spectators in this archaic and defunct language,
unveiling and commenting the vile intentions of the characters and
of their deeds. He wanders through the performance, is at the
centre of the action, identifies himself with its development and
struggles to avoid its uncontrolled events, seeking a way of
escape.

The bare space is lightened by torches that can be both portable
and fixed to the ground. These moving flames modulate the intensity
of the actions and the perception of the space. The actors move
amidst a labyrinth of torches, they carry them and use them to
underline - as in a painting by Rembrandt - the fragment of a scene
or a detail.

The stage action follows Saxo's storyline, punctuated by Hamlet's
outbursts of folly. Moments of indolence are interspersed with
frantic crises, while assassins or credulous accomplices run after
Hamlet to interpret his behaviour. At times, the whole reality
becomes a delirium. The events take place in a castle which is
besieged not by the Other World and its ghosts, but - much more
concretely - by the outside and its subsoil.

From the subsoil rats emerge, carriers of plague. These enemies of
the human race surface as miasmas from the dark and underground
layers of an orderly society.
Invaders are expected from the outside. Up to now, wretched and
hungry people have been arriving, looking for refuge. Are they
going to be contaminated by the plague or are they its carriers?
The castle's dwellers get rid of them methodically yet without
anger: a mere territorial cleansing operation. In the cemetery, a
few graves are always open in readiness. The gravediggers try to
keep order in this kingdom in which lethal forces scurry
around.

While corpses burn and the mad night of revenge seems ended,
Hamlet, as in a solitary prayer or a hymn of war, proclaims new
rules invoking the name of his father. It is not his father's ghost
that appears, but a child, ready to fight for his New Order.

With the support of: Danish Arts Council -
Centre for Performing Arts, Kulturministeriets Provinspulje,
Counties of Ringkjøbing and Frederiksborg, the Municipalities of
Holstebro, Lemvig, Struer, Thyborøn/Harboøre, Thyholm, Ulfborg/Vemb
and Vinderup, The Japan Foundation.